Untitled, Ethan Swanson, 2022 I am really happy with how this project turned out, out of what art I have made, this is what I am most proud of. With other projects I feel like I haven't completely gotten what I wanted out of it personally, or people didn't totally react to is how I wanted. But this one was really meaningful all around. It was so wonderful to make something that feels super personal to me, but also exists on its own without being connected to me. It was so fun to learn how to make plaster casts (thanks again Charlie :) ), as well as figuring out how to use the space. The physicality of putting it together was also so rewarding, I feel that there was a lot of meaning created by putting it together alone, with my own hands. Using direct animation was also so fun, and I really look forward to doing it again. Although I love film, I often find that it is kind of distanced because of the use of a camera, but this resolved that for me, I liked creating my ow
I still have a lot of uncertainty with Rachel Whiteread's art. Some pieces I absolutely love for their odd aesthetic and impenetrability, but some are just so aloof that I don't know where to go with them. I am especially frustrated because as far as I know she hasn't developed her style since the 1990's. While her early work is really exciting because of how it captures emptiness and relates to memory, her later stuff just feels pretty repetitive and uninspired. I hope we get to see some more stuff from her in the future that is more provocative. That being said, I really love her work and would love to see her pieces in person, I feel like in a gallery/museum setting they would be really imposing and off-putting, and people would get more out of them. I think her work also provokes a lot of thought between what is sculpture and what is installation. I think most people would regard her work as sculpture, I probably would to for most of her work. But there i